Tellings from Our Elders:
Lushootseed syəyəhub
Volume 2: Tales from the Skagit Valley
As told by Susie Sampson Peter, Dora Solomon,
Mary Sampson Willup, Harry Moses, Louise Anderson,
Martin Sampson, Dewey Mitchell, and Alice Williams
David Beck and Thom Hess
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FIRST NATIONS LANGUAGES
The First Nations languages of the world, many of which are renowned for the
complexity and richness of their linguistic structure, embody the cumulative cultural
knowledge of Aboriginal peoples. This vital linguistic heritage is currently under
severe threat of extinction. This series is dedicated to the linguistic study of these
languages.
Patricia A. Shaw, a member of the Department of Anthropology at the University
of British Columbia and director of the First Nations Languages Program, is general
editor of the series.
The other volumes in the series are:
The Lillooet Language: Phonology, Morphology, Syntax
Jan van Eijk
Musqueam Reference Grammar
Wayne Suttles
When I Was Small – I Wan Kwikws: A Grammatical Analysis of St’át’imc
Oral Narratives
Lisa Matthewson, in collaboration with Beverley Frank, Gertrude Ned,
Laura Thevarge, and Rose Agnes Whitley
Witsuwit’en Grammar: Phonetics, Phonology, Morphology
Sharon Hargus
Making Wawa: The Genesis of Chinook Jargon
George Lang
A Tsilhqút’ín Grammar
Eung-Do Cook
Tellings from Our Elders, Vol. 1, Snohomish Texts
David Beck and Thom Hess
Sample Material © 2015 UBC Press
© UBC Press 2015
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission
of the publisher.
The author wishes to thank the Upper Skagit, Swinomish, and Sauk-Suiattle Tribes and
Lushootseed Research for permission to reproduce the stories that appear in this book,
as they are told by Susie Sampson Peter, Dora Solomon, Mary Sampson Willup, Harry
Moses, Louise Anderson, Martin Sampson, Dewey Mitchell, and Alice Williams.
Their stories are protected under Native cultural heritage rights.
ISBN 9780774829045 (bound); ISBN 9780774829052 (pdf )
Cataloguing-in-publication data for this book is available from Library and Archives
Canada.
UBC Press gratefully acknowledges the financial support for our publishing program
of the Government of Canada (through the Canada Book Fund), the Canada Council
for the Arts, and the British Columbia Arts Council.
This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation
for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications
Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council of Canada.
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Contents
Foreword / vii
Jay Miller
Abbreviations and Symbols / xiii
Introduction / 3
1
gʷəqʷulc’əʔ Susie Sampson Peter / 21
Star Child / 24
2
Dora Solomon / 203
Star Child / 204
3
Mary Sampson Willup / 269
Star Child / 270
4
Harry Moses / 293
Star Child / 294
How Daylight Was Stolen / 325
5
tsi sqʷuʷaɬ Louise Anderson / 347
Basket Ogress / 349
6
ʔalataɬ Martin Sampson / 371
Basket Ogress / 373
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vi
Contents
7
Dewey Mitchell / 387
Basket Ogress / 389
8
Alice Williams / 405
Basket Ogress / 406
Glossary of Terms / 429
References / 437
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Foreword
This volume resonates with the voice of Vi Taqʷšəblu Hilbert, and it seems
appropriate to preface this work with some words about her life and influence
on Lushootseed and Lushootseed scholarship. Vi Hilbert was a scholar-elder,
US National Treasure, Washington State Living Treasure, Skagit resource, and
skilled storyteller in both English, “the borrowed language,” and her own
Lushootseed or Puget Salish. Initially working with linguist Thomas Hess to
transcribe and translate recordings of elderly speakers, she learned from Hess
the technical alphabet to be able to read and write her native language. Soon she
began teaching her language and literature (traditional stories) at the University
of Washington, generously sharing her knowledge with all students and interested faculty. With Hess and others, she co-wrote Lushootseed grammars and
dictionaries, and published books of stories, teachings, and place names. For Vi,
Lushootseed was a palpable presence in her own life and in the lives of all other
concerned human beings. It was not something to “reduce to writing” or “analyze to death,” but something to be involved with, to listen to, and to live by.
Born in 1918, Vi was the only child in her family to grow to adulthood. Her
mother, Louise Bob Anderson, was vivacious, dramatic, hardworking, and generous. The father who raised her was Charlie Anderson, a logger who moved
the family frequently. He was also a specialized carver and canoe maker, leading
canoe-racing teams to victory. His canoe, the Question Mark, resides in a huge
maritime museum in Virginia.
To supplement the family income, her parents spent part of each spring and
fall picking strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and potatoes. As Vi grew
older, she worked beside them. At night, she would visit with her Aunt Susie
Sampson Peter, the scholarly elder of Skagit culture. Aunt Susie was blind by
this time, yet she picked, and picked clean, by feeling the berries on the bushes
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Foreword
Vi Hilbert and her husband, Don, at their
annual salmon bake. Photo courtesy of
Jill La Pointe.
assigned to her. In consequence, her hands would bristle with thorns at night. Vi
would carefully remove them while listening to her aunt chat. For this kindness,
Aunt Susie began to call Vi her daughter. Years later, these quiet moments listening to the elegant Skagit spoken by Aunt Susie took on special relevance
when Vi began to transcribe and translate tape recording of her aunt made in the
1950s by Leon Metcalf.
In 1967, Vi was talking with Louise George, a multilingual elder married to
a Nooksack relative. Louise was praising highly the work of a nice young man
she was helping to write down the Lushootseed language. That man was Thomas
(Thom) Hess, who had been collecting data since 1961 for his University of
Washington dissertation on the language.
Vi watched intently as Hess and Louise listened to and wrote down sections
of Louise’s Basket Ogress story. She realized that her own English was nuanced
enough to provide better translations. Impelled by family honour and training,
she agreed to work with Thom upon his promise to teach her to read and write
Lushootseed.
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ix
Vi converted her former hair salon into the Lushootseed “Brain Room” and
concentrated on her new work. She and Thom wrote lesson plans for daily
classes, a textbook, and then a dictionary and the first Haboo book (Hilbert
1985), traditional stories written down as they had been told. Vi used these materials in her fifteen years of teaching at the University of Washington, followed
by two years at Evergreen College as the Evans Chair Scholar.
Her dedication to Lushootseed became total. Those who worked with her
soon learned that her momentum alone was sufficient to inspire and execute
a range of activities. She was not just the source and motivator, she was also
the sustainer. Over the years, every interested questioner has received food,
shelter, therapy, money, and advice in the process of undertaking a project with
her. Researchers are automatically included in family meals, outings, and activities, provided they gain Vi’s initial approval to begin research. Such judgments
are based on an assessment of character, interest, sympathy, resolve, and, importantly, sense of humour and flexibility.
In this way, beginning as a sensitive translator, Vi struck out on her own to
fulfill her family’s expectations about the leadership role they had assumed for
generations. She always deferred to her elders and ancestors, modestly claiming
to do only the work they intended. When asked a question, she, as often as not,
would respond not with what she herself knew, at least not initially, but rather
with a citation to a text she had transcribed or translated. Before undertaking
her own work, she decided to compile what had been done by earlier scholars
working with her parents and other relatives. Doing so was not easy because she
had to overcome academic suspicion, particularly on the part of Melville Jacobs,
the maven of local Salish and Native linguistic research.
She set up a non-profit corporation called Lushootseed Research, then established Lushootseed Press to publish much of the Leon Metcalf material in bilingual form, including the books Aunt Susie Sampson Peter (Hilbert 1995a) and
“Gram” Ruth Sehome Shelton (Hilbert 1995b), as well as Haboo: Lushootseed
Literature in English (Hilbert 2004). Holding the long view, Vi hoped that
future generations would be able to access Lushootseed language and cultural
information through her publications and archives. Realizing that printed matter had less appeal for Natives, she pushed on with Lushootseed Theater to preserve the stories in dramatic form and had some of them taped. Her last class
teaching the language was also videotaped for posterity.
Her dignified storytelling style developed over the years to take up more of
her time, beginning with annual presentations from 1983 to 1987 at the National
Association for the Preservation and Perpetuation of Storytelling at Jonesborough, Tennessee. Other invitations followed, taking her to Canada, England,
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Foreword
Europe, and all over the United States. For the 1992 Quincentennial, she gathered elders and artists at the Seattle Art Museum and St. Mark’s Episcopal
Cathedral to share Lushootseed traditions with a large and appreciative audience. In May 2006, the Seattle Orchestra performed the Healing Heart of
Lushootseed Symphony, commissioned by Vi from composer Bruce Ruddell.
She also advised on many local art projects, texts for the Seattle Art Museum,
stamp art, and the ethnobotanical garden named for her at Seattle University.
Vi’s awards include being named Washington State Living Treasure in
1989, the 1993 Nancy Blankenship Pryor Award for contributing “vision and
time to the literary culture of Washington and the Northwest,” and an honorary
PhD from Seattle University in 1994 for her “accomplishments as a language
teacher, a storyteller, a translator, a researcher, and a traditional elder.” Also in
1994, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton presented her with a National Heritage Award, which included a $10,000 fellowship and a place in the National
Folk Arts Hall of Fame. Her life and work were featured in the television documentary Huchoosedah: Traditions of the Heart (KCTS/BBC Wales).
At all times, she deferred to the recorded elders as the best teachers. When
she finished a first draft of her efforts on a story or account, she visited living
relatives of the speaker she had long known, probably as a playmate. She went
over her work and asked for their help with difficult passages. When all were
satisfied, she did a final draft and gave them a copy. In the case of the voluminous tapes by Aunt Susie, she went over each and every one with Martin Sampson,
Aunt Susie’s son, who provided context and commentary for each translation,
particularly valuable because it too is in the Native language. Currently, Martin’s
own grandson, John, is basing his dissertation at Seattle University on her tapes.
In all, only a Native speaker could have achieved this kind of nuanced translation and commentary. That Vi was also working with material from close relatives was a dividend resulting from the Native repute of the ancestors of her
family. In particular, these relatives included the most famous of modern shamans, who lent his support to her efforts and helped to dampen any criticism
from some segments of the Native community.
Throughout her working life, Vi was acutely concerned with reintegrating
her materials into the local Native community. Any family member of anyone
she had on tape or paper was, she felt, entitled to a copy of the information from
that ancestor. She called this “archiving” and, from a Native perspective, it is just
that because it achieves a communal sharing of this knowledge. Some academics
have also been privileged to receive such materials for archiving. In all cases,
however, the decision to provide the material is based on a character assessment
of that individual. People with the good sense and balanced perspective to know
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xi
when and where to share such data have been the ones to receive it. By taking
custody, they agree to talk or not talk about the information based on their assessment of the time, place, people, and attitudes involved. Since “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing,” the decision to archive with a person relies on
judgments about that person’s discretion, particularly the absence of any character flaws that could lead to arrogance, possessiveness, a proprietary attitude, and
so on.
Vi passed away on the morning of 19 December 2008 at her home in
LaConner, Washington, surrounded by her family. The region iced over, making
travel treacherous, so the funeral was held a week after Christmas, when the
thaw began as her remains were cremated. With her husband and son, she is
buried beside her parents in a Nooksack cemetery.
Vi’s papers are in the Special Collections at the University of Washington in
Seattle. Her audio and video tapes are at the University of Washington Ethnomusicology Archives and can be accessed online at http://www.music.washington.
edu/ethno/hilbert/collection.html.
Jay Miller
Lushootseed Research
Sample Material © 2015 UBC Press
“Lushootseed Elders” by Ron Hilbert. Top row: Edward (Hagan) and
Ethel Sam, unknown woman, Martha Lamont. Middle row: Isadore
Petius and Jackie Tom, Vi Hilbert, Louisa and Charlie Anderson,
unknown man. Bottom row: Ruth Shelton; Charlie Anderson with Lois
and Ron Hilbert, Susie Sampson Peter. Courtesy Lushootseed Research.
Sample Material © 2015 UBC Press
Introduction
This volume is the second in a series dedicated to the presentation in analyzed
form of Lushootseed traditional stories or syəyəhub. Where the first volume
presents stories told in the Snohomish (sduhubš) dialect, here we offer syəyəhub
told in the varieties of Lushootseed collectively known as Skagit (sqaǰət).
Perhaps less familiar to some than Snohomish, Skagit was tirelessly promoted
during her lifetime by the late Vi Taqʷšəblu Hilbert (1918–2008). An Upper
Skagit Elder and a speaker of the Lower Skagit dialect, Mrs. Hilbert dedicated
the later part of her life to the documentation and conservation of the Lushootseed
language. Much of what has been preserved of Skagit comes from the interviews
she recorded with her relatives and other Elders in the 1970s and 1980s. Additionally, she took upon herself the monumental task of transcribing the archived
recordings of Lushootseed Elders, including speakers of Skagit and Upper Skagit
varieties, made by Leon Metcalf (1899–1993) in the 1950s. Some of this material, including Susie Sampson Peter’s telling of “Star Child,” the opening text
of this volume, has been published in parallel-text form (Hilbert 1995a, 1995b,
1995c) under the auspices of Lushootseed Research, an organization founded by
Mrs. Hilbert in 1983. What has been published, however, represents only a fraction of what she was able to record and transcribe, and today there exist literally
hundreds of pages of typescript texts, interviews, and songs, translated, formatted, and written in standard Lushootseed orthography with the help of another
important figure of Northwest Coast linguistics, Thomas M. Hess (1936–2007).
Dr. Hess began his work with Lushootseed as a graduate student at the University of Washington in the 1960s and spent most of his academic career working
with communities up and down Puget Sound, documenting the language of
their Elders.
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Introduction
As much as for his academic work, Dr. Hess is remembered for his dedication to the maintenance and revitalization of the Lushootseed language. It was
Thom Hess who developed the orthography used by the Lushootseed communities to this day, and it was he who taught it to Mrs. Hilbert in 1967, beginning
a fruitful collaboration that spanned nearly four decades. The purpose of this
volume is to continue the work of Mrs. Hilbert and Dr. Hess by offering a selection of traditional narratives drawn from the material that they compiled, each
accompanied by full analysis, translation, and interlinear glosses. It is hoped that
this collection will serve the purposes of linguists and other scholars, advanced
learners, and teachers of the language, and that it will become an important part
of the documentary record of the Lushootseed language as it was spoken by the
final generation of Elders whose first and only early childhood language was
Lushootseed.
Language
Lushootseed (dəxʷləšucid, also known as Puget Salish or Skagit-Nisqually) is
the name given to the language of the indigenous peoples living in the Puget
Sound basin, along the lower stretches of the Skagit and Samish River systems,
on Whidbey Island, and on the eastern half of Fidalgo Island in northwest
Washington State (Bates et al. 1994). Along with Twana, it forms the Southern
branch of the Central Salish division of the Salishan language family (Kiyosawa
and Gerdts 2010). The different varieties of the language constitute a dialect continuum, generally divided by linguists into two groups, Northern and Southern
(Hess 1977), based on differences in lexical stress-patterns and the distribution of
certain vocabulary and grammatical elements. The Southern varieties include
Duwamish, Nisqually, Puyallup, Sahewamish, Skykomish, Snoqualmie, Squaxin,
Suquamish, and Whulshootseed (Muckleshoot), while the Northern division encompasses Sauk-Suiattle, Skagit proper, Snohomish, Stillaguamish, Swinomish,
and Upper Skagit. Although these divisions reflect the current situation in terms
of recorded and extant speech varieties, in earlier times, before disruption by
European contact and the redistribution of the population to reserves, dialectal
differences could be used to identify individual villages and households (Bates et
al. 1994). Currently, Lushootseed is the first language of probably fewer than a
dozen Elders, although some varieties are being maintained as heritage languages
through energetic revitalization programs.
The term “Skagit” (sqaǰət) is loosely applied to the speech of all the communities located along the Skagit River and its tributaries, although the name
sqaǰət originally referred more strictly to the speech of those living on the northern part of Whidbey Island in an area running from Snakelum Point to Crescent
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Introduction
5
Harbour (Bates et al. 1994). Current discussions tend to divide the Skagit River
dialects into Upper and Lower Skagit, the latter including the Lushootseed
spoken at Swinomish (swədəbš), probably the best-documented of the Skagit
varieties. This volume presents a selection of nine tales from eight speakers of
both Upper and Lower Skagit; included are four tellings of the Star Child saga,
a Lushootseed version of the pan–Northwest Coast story of how daylight was
stolen, and four versions of the Basket Ogress legend.
Texts
The stories in this volume are all traditional tales, or syəyəhub, told by Skagit
Elders. The first tale, “Star Child” by Susie Sampson Peter, was recorded in
1950 by Leon Metcalf (Metcalf tapes 1 and 2) and represents one of the oldest
and most complete tellings of this famous Lushootseed creation story. Following
this are three more versions of the Star Child legend, one told by Dora Solomon
and recorded in the 1970s by Mrs. Hilbert, and another told by Mary Willup to
Leon Metcalf in 1954 (Metcalf tape 60A). The fourth version is that told by
Harry Moses, recorded in 1952 by Leon Metcalf (Metcalf tape 32A). Also from
the Metcalf collection (Metcalf tape 22) is Harry Moses’ telling of “Stealing
Daylight,” recorded the same year; a version of this text was first published in
analyzed form in Hilbert and Hess 1977 and then subsequently appeared, along
with an analysis of Mr. Moses’ version of “Star Child,” in Beck and Hess 2010.
The remainder of the texts in this volume are different versions of the Basket
Ogress story told by Louise Anderson (recorded by Pamela Amoss in 1955),
Martin Sampson (recorded by Mrs. Hilbert in 1977), Dewey Mitchell (recorded
by Mrs. Hilbert in 1980), and Alice Williams (recorded by Mrs. Hilbert in 1984).
The multiple versions of the Basket Ogress legends (including the versions of
Martha Lamont and Agnes James found in Volume 1) were originally intended
for inclusion in a volume provisionally titled Once Is Not Enough. This volume
was to have been a collaboration between Mrs. Hilbert and Thom Hess, the
aim of which was to provide multiple tellings of the same story by different
speakers or by the same speaker on different occasions. Sadly, the project never
came to fruition, though it might be hoped that to some small extent their goals
have been achieved by providing several of these stories together in the present
volume.
With the exception of Louise Anderson’s telling of “Basket Ogress” (which
was transcribed by Thom Hess with the assistance of Mrs. Louise George), the
recordings in this volume were all transcribed and translated in the first place by
Vi Hilbert. These transcriptions and Mrs. Hilbert’s translations were then reviewed by Mrs. Hilbert and Thom Hess, corrected and adjusted, and finally
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Introduction
transformed into clean typescript. The texts were then entered into a computer,
most of them by Hess and a few by Beck. Hess’ original files were created in an
ancient DOS-based word processor and later migrated by Beck into a more modern format and incorporated into an analytical database, which was then used to
parse and produce the interlinearizations of the texts presented below. Many of
the first versions of these analyses were checked by Hess, who contributed to the
work as his health allowed until his passing in 2009.
Presentation
The analyzed texts are presented here in four-line interlinearized format:
1
ʔu, pukʷəb tiʔəʔ x̌ix̌payʔ ʔəst’əbš
ʔu
INTJ
pukʷəb tiʔəʔ x̌i–x̌payʔ
pile
PROX ATTN–red.cedar
‘Oh, the braided cedar piles up.’
transcription
ʔas–t’əbš
STAT–braid
parsing line
analysis line
full gloss
The first line presents a transcription of what is considered to be a single line of
text based on prosodic and structural criteria. This was done on a largely informal basis according to what seemed intuitive to Mrs. Hilbert or Dr. Hess at
the time of transcription (as opposed to having recourse to a hard-and-fast set
of conventions based on syntactic structure), and the results are to some extent
particular to each individual story. The original line breaks have for the most
part been preserved here, although a few minor adjustments have been made and
are reflected in the texts presented in this volume (see the discussion below).
The orthography used in presenting these texts is that developed by Thom
Hess and currently employed by the Tulalip Tribes and the Tulalip language
program, as well as in the Lushootseed Dictionary (Bates et al. 1994), the
Lushootseed Readers (Hess 1995, 1998, 2006), and most other printed materials. The alphabet, based on Americanist versions of the International Phonetic
Alphabet (IPA), employs 40 consonant symbols, given in Table 1 on the next
page, and four vowels (a, ə, i, u), three of which have long and short forms (aa,
ii, uu). In addition to these symbols, the half-triangular colon, “ ˑ ”, is used to
indicate emphatic or rhetorical lengthening of vowels, a technique used by the
storytellers for dramatic effect. Punctuation symbols such as periods, commas,
question marks, and exclamation points are not used in the transcription lines.
The only significant departure from the principle of phonemic spelling found
in Lushootseed orthography is the treatment of the feminine forms of determiners and demonstratives such as tsi, tsiʔəʔ, or tsiʔiɬ. Phonemically, these are
(in Lushootseed orthography) /ci/, /ciʔəʔ/, and /ciʔiɬ/, respectively; however,
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Introduction
7
Table 1
Lushootseed consonants
Bilabial
Alveolar
voiceless stops
p, p’
voiced stops
b, (b’)
Post-alveolar
Velar
Uvular
Glottal
t, t’
k, k’
kʷ, k’ʷ
q, q’
qʷ, q’ʷ
ʔ
d
g, gʷ
x̌ [χ]
x̌ʷ [χʷ]
h
voiceless
affricates
c [ts]
č [tʃ ]
voiced
affricates
dᶻ [dz]
ǰ [dʒ]
lateral
affricates
ƛ’ [tɬ’]
voiceless
fricatives
s
lateral
fricative
ɬ
approximants
l, l’
nasals
(m), (m’)
š [ʃ ]
xʷ
y, [j]
y’ [ j’]
w, w’
(n), (n’)
( ) = rare phoneme or phoneme restricted to stylized speech
[ ] = corresponding IPA symbol
contrast with the non-feminine forms (ti, tiʔəʔ, and tiʔiɬ) and between pairs such
as kʷi ‘remote non-feminine’ and kʷsi ‘remote feminine’ reveals the presence of
a morpheme -s- ‘feminine’. This is explicitly recognized in the orthography developed by Hess, which represents the initial /c/ phoneme of such forms as “ts,”
and this practice is followed here. On the other hand, this volume does not continue Hess’ use of the final orthographic “h” with simple CV verbal radicals like
ʔah ‘be there’ and qah ‘many’. This became part of standardized Lushootseed
spelling in order to maintain a consistent CVC root pattern, but it is felt that here
it might be misleading to those interested in the phonological and phonotactic
patterns of the language.
In other respects, the transcription practices here follow those of Hess, who
chose to write words using a broadly morphophonemic transcription system that
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Introduction
gives words in a standardized spelling reflective of careful pronunciation, recognizing only those allophonic and allomorphic alternations that are considered
sufficiently regular and rate-of-speech-independent. Contracted or prosodically
reduced forms such as [tiiɬ] for tiʔiɬ ‘that’, [ciiɬ] for cədiɬ ‘s/he’, or [stəb] for stab
‘what’ are written consistently in their full, citation form. Careful listening will
certainly reveal a range of phonological and prosodic effects that cause pronunciations to deviate from standardized forms, but representing these in the written
texts runs the risk of making the words they represent impossible to identify.
There is, however, one environment in which phonetic variation is recognized in the transcription. This is where phonological juncture has taken place in
rapid speech between two words that, in careful speech, would be pronounced
as two completely separate items, with the potential for pauses between them or
for the presence of intervening words in slightly different syntactic contexts. An
example of this can be seen in (2):
2
ɬuhaʔlid čəxʷ t(i) adʔibac
ɬu=haʔɬ–i–t
IRR=good–SS–ICS
čəxʷ
2SG.SUB
ti
SPEC
ad–ʔibac
2SG.PO–grandchild
‘You will comfort your grandchild.’ [Susie Sampson Peter’s Star Child, line 200]
Instead of the full form of the noun phrase, ti adʔibac ‘your grandson’, what is
heard in the recording here is [tadʔibac], the determiner ti being reduced to /t/
and pronounced as part of the following word. The full form of words pronounced
in this way is maintained in the transcription in the interests of clarity in the
syntactic analysis, and in recognition of the fact that the reduction of these forms
is not absolutely consistent and is particular to rate of speech and specific prosodic environments.
Unlike parentheses, which are not to be interpreted as “corrections” of the
text, square brackets are used in the transcription lines to indicate grammatical
amendments. Brackets are used to provide either: (a) missing grammatical markers or syntactic elements, the majority of which were added on the advice of
the Elder working on the original transcription; or (b) repairs of words which
were mispronounced due to slips of the tongue or rapid speaking. An example
of the first type of amendment can be seen in (3):
3
ʔux̌ʷ [dxʷʔal] tsiʔəʔ šəbəd[s]
ʔux̌ʷ
go
dxʷ–ʔal
CNTRPT–at
tsiʔəʔ
PROX:FEM
šəbəd–s
fish.trap–3PO
‘(The mother) goes to her fishtrap.’ [Susie Sampson Peter’s Star Child, line 206]
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Introduction
9
Here we see two amendments. The first is the addition of the preposition dxʷʔal
‘to, towards’, added by Mrs. Hilbert during transcription to clarify that the direction of the motion described by ʔux̌ʷ ‘go’ (normally a monovalent intransitive
verb in any case) is towards the fishtrap. The second amendment is the addition
of the third-person plural possessive suffix -s, again based on the intended meaning of the sentence as gleaned from context.
Other (fewer) editorial amendments are motivated by purely grammatical
considerations. Consider the sentence in (4):
4
ʔaɬx̌ad dəxʷʔahiləxʷ ʔə tiʔiɬ [s]ləx̌ils
ʔaɬx̌ad
downstream
dəxʷ=ʔa–il=axʷ
ADNM=be.there–INCH=now
ʔə
PR
tiʔiɬ
s=ləx̌–il=s
DIST
NM=light–INCH=3PO
‘It is downstream where it becomes light.’ [Mary Willup’s Star Child, line 82]
Here, the transcriber has added the nominalizing clitic s= to the verbform ləx̌il
‘get light out’. This is motivated both by the syntax of the sentence (the nominalization of the clause is an indicator of subordination) and by the fact that
the word itself bears the third-person possessive enclitic =s, which marks
agreement with a subject only for nominalizations and otherwise never appears
on verbs.
Another amendment motivated by grammatical considerations is seen in (5):
5
ʔuˑ kikəwič [tiʔəʔ] ʔuwiʔadəxʷ
ʔu
INTJ
ki–kəwič
ATTN–hunchback
tiʔəʔ
ʔu–wiʔa–t=axʷ
PROX
PFV–holler–ICS=now
‘Oh, the one who hollers is Little Hunchback.’ [Louise Anderson’s Basket
Ogress, line 10]
In this case, the addition of the determiner tiʔəʔ was made following the principle that the subject of the sentence, a “headless” relative clause based on the
verb wiʔad ‘to holler’, requires a determiner. Such amendments are marked in
this volume both to alert readers to discrepancies with what is heard in the recordings, and, of course, to leave open the possibility that the utterances as
spoken were in fact correct, following grammatical patterns that have yet to be
understood.
The second motivation for adding material in brackets was mispronunciation, generally in the context of rapid speech, as in (6):
Sample Material © 2015 UBC Press
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Introduction
[dxʷ]xʷƛ’alšəd čəd
dxʷxʷƛ’alšəd
prepare.cedar
čəd
1SG.SUB
‘I’ll prepare cedar.’ [Susie Sampson Peter’s Star Child, line 83]
Here the word heard in the recording is [xʷƛ’alšəd], whereas Mrs. Hilbert recognized the form as the word dxʷxʷƛ’alšəd ‘prepare cedar’ and offered the full
form by way of correction. It should be noted that in all the cases presented here,
the amendments were made on the advice of the Elders working on the original
transcriptions, as were the majority of amendments to the texts presented below,
which are also found in other published versions of the same texts. In a very few
(and only in absolutely uncontroversial) cases, further amendments have been
added to transcriptions as part of the preparation of this volume.
Brackets in this volume are also used to a limited extent where a mis-speaking has led to a contradictory or potentially confusing statement due to an error
in lexical choice. This occurs, for example, in Dora Solomon’s telling of “Star
Child,” as shown in (7):
7
xʷiʔ kʷi suǰəctxʷs kʷi gʷəɬ [stubš] saʔliʔɬ
xʷiʔ kʷi
NEG
REM
s=ʔu–ǰəc–txʷ=s
kʷi gʷəɬ
NM=PFV–useful–ECS=3PO REM ASSC
stubš s=haʔɬ•iʔɬ
man NM=good•child
‘ “She will not use man’s speech to soothe the child.’ [Dora Solomon’s Star
Child, line 100]
Here, the word spoken on tape is sɬadəyʔ ‘woman’; however, in the context of
the story it is clear that the injunction is against using man’s speech to the child
(in order to disguise its masculine gender). The failure of the character being
addressed to follow through on the injunction is central to the story, so the misspeaking is corrected to avoid potential confusion.
Following the transcription, a line containing a full parsing of the words in
the first line into morphological units in a full or underlying form is presented,
using the following conventions:
–
•
=
‿
affix-boundary
lexical suffix boundary
clitic boundary
two-part lexical item
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11
For the purposes of the analysis below, an affix (marked by “–”) is considered a
bound element with a grammatical meaning (derivational or inflectional) that is
a morphological component of the lexeme or the inflected wordform to which it
is attached. Example (8) below shows the word ʔuɬik’ʷtəb ‘has been kidnapped’
broken down into its radical, ɬik’ʷ- ‘hooked’, a derivational suffix, -t ‘internal
causative’, and two inflectional affixes, ʔu- ‘perfective’ and -b ‘passive’:
8
ʔuɬik’ʷtəb ʔə kʷi tul’q’xʷulgʷədxʷ
ʔu–ɬik’ʷ–t–b
ʔə
PFV–hooked–ICS–PASS PR
kʷi
REM
tul’–q’x•ulgʷədxʷ
CNTRFG–upstream•land
‘He has been kidnapped by those from the upriver area.’ [Mary Willup’s
Star Child, line 123]
Grammatical affixes such as these are treated as distinct from lexical suffixes
(marked by “•”), which are bound elements that for the most part have what are
traditionally thought of as more lexical meanings (generally, the translationequivalents of English nouns). In (8), we also see the lexical suffix •ulgʷədxʷ
‘land’ added to the root q’x ‘upstream’, forming a word meaning ‘land or area
upstream’. Lexical suffixes are a well-known feature of Salishan languages
(Czaykowska-Higgins and Kinkade 1998), as well as of other language families
of the Pacific Northwest (Kinkade et al. 1998). In Lushootseed, they are often
only recognizable in words as fossilized elements, but even in non-compositional
uses they are parsed here, whenever possible, for their etymological interest.
In contrast to affixes, which are part of the morphological makeup of words,
clitics (indicated by “=”) are elements that are phonologically bound to a word
without making up part of that word’s morphological structure. Lushootseed has,
in fact, a very large number of clitics. Some of them have been traditionally identified as affixes, but these can be distinguished from true affixes on syntactic
grounds, based on (a) their ability to combine with words of a variety of lexical
classes, and (b) the fact that their distribution is determined by syntactic rather
than morphological criteria. The first of these properties can be seen in (9):
9
ɬuhuyudəxʷ čəɬ tiʔəʔ ɬudəxʷhuy ʔə kʷi ɬudəxʷlaqəxʷ ɬuʔaciɬtabixʷ
ɬu=huyu–t=axʷ
IRR=made–ICS=now
čəɬ
1PL.SUB
tiʔəʔ
PROX
ɬu=dəxʷ=huyu
IRR=ADNM=made
ʔə
PR
kʷi
REM
ɬu=dəxʷ=laq=axʷ
ɬu=ʔaciɬtabixʷ
IRR=ADNM=behind=now IRR=people
‘ “We will do what will be done for those people who will come after us.” ’
[Dora Solomon’s Star Child, line 337]
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Introduction
In this example, we see the modal clitic ɬu= ‘irrealis’ repeated on four elements
belonging to three different parts of speech: a finite verb (huyud ‘make something’), two nominalized verbs (dəxʷhuy ‘be made for’ and dəxʷlaq ‘be behind’),
and a noun (ʔaciɬtabixʷ ‘people’). The iteration of the modal clitics seen here is
a not-uncommon feature in the narratives below.
The second property, the syntactic regulation of clitics, follows in part from
their independence from the morphological structure of the words that they attach to phonologically, and results in patterns such as that in (10):
10
ʔəx̌id kʷ(i) adəx̌ʷul’ ɬadəyʔlucidbid
ʔəx̌id
what.happened
kʷi
REM
ad=dəxʷ=x̌ʷul’
2SG.PO=ADNM=just
ɬadəyʔ•l•ucid–bi–t
woman•CNN•mouth–MAP–ICS
‘ “Why don’t you just call him a girl child?’ [Susie Sampson Peter’s Star
Child, line 226]
This sentence contains a clause, x̌ʷul’ ɬadəyʔlucidbid ‘s/he just calls him/her a
girl child’, subordinated with the nominalizing proclitic dəxʷ=. However, rather
than being attached to the verb (ɬadəyʔlucid ‘call someone a girl child’), dəxʷ=
attaches itself to the preverbal adverb x̌ʷul’ ‘only’, as does the second-person
proclitic ad=, which marks subject agreement for the nominalized clause – in
other words, both the nominalizer and the subject inflection appear on the adverb rather than the verb. Lushootseed grammar requires that these two clitics
appear on the first full lexical item of the clause, not on the verb whose nominalization they mark and whose subject they agree with. This shows that the
placement of these two elements is sensitive to syntactic, rather than morphological, restrictions.
A further point to note here is that clitics of this type, which are consistently
left- or right-leaning (and display templatic ordering properties with respect to
each other – see Hess 1995 for discussion), are treated differently from clitics of
another type, sentence-second clitics, which are, in phonological terms, either
left- or right-leaning depending on prosodic context (Beck 1999). For example,
in the following two sentences from Volume 1, the first-person subject clitic čəd
in (11) is, in phonological terms, an enclitic on the preceding word, whereas in
(12) it is a proclitic attached to the word that follows:
11
tuyəcəbtubčd ʔə tiʔiɬ tudyəl’yəlab
tu=yəc–b–txʷ–b=čəd
PAST=report–MD–ECS–PASS=1SG.SUB
ʔə
PR
tiʔiɬ
DIST
tu=d–yəl’–yəlab
PAST=1SG.PO–DSTR–elder
‘I was told by my forebears.’ [Edward Sam’s Mink and Tutyika, line 3]
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12
13
ʔuˑ tux̌ʷ čdʔuʔibibəš
ʔu
INTJ
tux̌ʷ
just
čəd=ʔu–ʔib–ibəš
1SG.SUB=PFV–DIM.EFF–travel
‘ Oh, I’m just pacing back and forth.’ [Edward Sam’s Mink and Tutyika,
line 18]
Clitics of this type (which include the matrix-clause subject markers, the interrogative marker, and particles expressing speaker attitude) are written as independent lexical items in standard Lushootseed orthography, and this practice
is maintained here for clarity’s sake.
The fourth notation used in interlinear analysis is the undertie (‿), which is
used to join the two-part lexical item x̌əɬ ti ‘seemingly’ when it appears on the
parsing line to make it clear that both words jointly correspond to a single gloss
on the analysis line:
13
tiˑləbəxʷ x̌əɬ ti ʔusaʔsxʷəb tiʔəʔ kikəwič
tiləb=axʷ
x̌əɬ‿ti
ʔu–saʔ–sxʷəb
immediately=now seemingly PFV–ATTN–run
tiʔəʔ
PROX
ki–kəwič
ATTN–hunchback
‘Right then it seems that Little Hunchback had scurried off.’ [Louise
Anderson’s Basket Ogress, line 95]
Although the two elements taken together have a single meaning and they are
pronounced as a single phonological unit when adjacent, they cannot be treated
as a single word because clitics such as =axʷ ‘now’ can intervene between them,
as seen in the following example from Volume 1:
14
x̌əɬəxʷ ti ʔəst’ugʷud əlgʷəʔ
x̌əɬ=axʷ‿ti
seemingly=now
ʔas–t’ukʷu–t
əlgʷəʔ
STAT–measure–ICS PL
‘It seems they sort of deciphered it.’ [The Brothers of Pheasant’s Wife,
line 466]
x̌əɬ occurs in one or two instances on its own with the gloss of the whole expression, suggesting that ti is an “empty” element; however, rather than leaving it
unglossed (or glossing it redundantly as ‘seemingly’), the undertie has been
adopted to mark explicitly the dependency between x̌əɬ and ti.
Affixes and clitics that are identified and segmented out in the parsing line
are represented in their full or underlying form, rather than in the contextualized
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Introduction
form that appears in the transcription line. Thus, for instance, the diminished
control suffix -dxʷ (DC) in (15) and (16) has two different forms in the transcription lines but a single form in the two parsing lines:
15
ƛ’ubəxʷ čəd ɬudxʷsaydxʷ
ƛ’ub=axʷ
well=now
čəd
1SG.SUB
ɬu=dxʷs–hay–dxʷ
IRR=CTD–known–DC
‘ “I should find out.’ [Mary Willup’s Star Child, line 34]
16
tiləb ʔuhaydub ʔə tiʔəʔ t’ət’əwaʔs
tiləb
immediately
ʔu–hay–dxʷ–b
PFV–known–DC–PASS
ʔə
PR
tiʔəʔ
PROX
t’ət’əwaʔs
star
‘Right away it was known by the star.’ [Susie Sampson Peter’s Star Child,
line 30]
In the first example, the suffix comes at the end of a phonological word
(ɬudxʷsaydxʷ) and has its basic form, -dxʷ, whereas in (16) it undergoes a regular morphophonological alternation (-dxʷ → -du) when followed by the passive
suffix in the form (ʔuhaydub), an alternation that is made explicit by maintaining
the underlying representation of the suffix in the parsing line.
Similar treatment is given to epenthetic segments such as that shown by the
first word in the sentence in (17):
17
šušɬbitəbəxʷ tiʔiɬ ɬuʔaɬx̌adəs
šu–šɬ–bi–t–b=axʷ
tiʔiɬ
ATTN–see–MAP–ICS–PASS=now DIST
ɬu=ʔaɬx̌ad=as
IRR=downstream=3SBJ
‘They watch for him to come downstream.’ [Mary Willup’s Star Child,
line 81]
Example (17) illustrates vowel-epenthesis typical of the sequence of suffixes -t
‘internal causative’ + -b ‘passive’. The schwa here is, strictly speaking, not part
of either suffix, nor is it itself a suffix: its only function is to separate the two affixes, and as a meaningless phonological element it is not included in the morphological breakdown of the word. Similarly, the sentence in (18) shows the use of
the epenthetic /h/ to avoid hiatus (a sequence of vowels, each in its own
syllable):
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18
15
ʔahəxʷ t(i) adsəsʔəq’dagʷəl
ʔa=axʷ
ti
be.there=now SPEC
ad=s=ʔas–ʔəq’–t–agʷəl
2SG.PO=NM=STAT–open–ICS–RCP
‘ “You have a visitor.’ [Susie Sampson Peter’s Star Child, line 980]
This type of epenthesis can be found throughout the text, though to my knowledge it
has not been commented on in the literature, underlining the primary reason for using
“full” forms in the morphological analyses: our current understanding of Lushootseed
morphophonemics is at best sketchy, and using this type of representation makes explicit the contrasts and alternations that will have to be accounted for in a complete
Lushootseed morphophonology.
A similar practice is followed with verbal radicals, which can be divided into
different classes depending on the forms they take in various contexts. One common class of radical appears in simple CVC form in most contexts but appears
in CVCV form in certain others, as shown in (19) and (20):1
19
diɬəxʷ shuys tiʔiɬ dəč’uʔ syəyəhub
diɬ=axʷ s=huyu=s
tiʔiɬ
FOC=now NM=made=3PO DIST
dəč’uʔ
one
syəyəhub
legend
‘That is the end of one story.’ [Alice Williams’ Basket Ogress, line 145]
20
huyudəxʷ tiʔəʔ ɬudəxʷəsgʷədils
huyu–t=axʷ
tiʔəʔ ɬu=dəxʷ=ʔas–gʷəd–il=s
made–ICS=now PROX IRR=ADNM=STAT–down–INCH=3PO
‘She makes something to sit on.’ [Susie Sampson Peter’s Star Child, line 89]
In the first sentence, the radical huy(u) ‘be made’ appears in its CVC form, while
in the second it appears in CVCV form. Because the “extra” vowel in the longer
form is unpredictable, the radical is always given in CVCV form in the parsing
line. Most CVCV roots are presented as head words in the Lushootseed
Dictionary (Bates et al. 1994) in the form CVC(V).
Another class of verbal radicals varies between CC and CəC forms, depending on the stem in which it appears. One common radical of this class is šq
‘be high’:
Here, “C” means any consonant and “V” means any vowel.
1
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Introduction
tuxʷit’ilcut tul’šəq
tu=xʷit’il–t–sut
tul’–šq
PAST=descend–ICS–REFL CNTRFG–high
‘She came down from above.’ [Dora Solomon’s Star Child, line 5]
22
xʷiʔ gʷəsəšqil ʔə ɬukʷaɬ
xʷiʔ
NEG
gʷə=s=ʔas–šq–il
ʔə
SBJ=NM=STAT–high–INCH PR
ɬukʷaɬ
sun
‘The sun cannot rise high.’ [Mary Willup’s Star Child, line 112]
For this class of radical, the presence or absence of the schwa (ə) in the word is
conditioned by the suffix that follows it – specifically, whether or not there is a
stressable (non-schwa) vowel in the suffix: if there is none, the radical appears in
CəC form (that is, has an epenthetic schwa); if the suffix has a vowel, the radical
appears in CC form.2 This pattern can be understood only if the basic CC form
of the radical is given in the parsing line.
Because one of the aims of this collection is to represent the full grammatical
and morphological structure of the language, the level of analysis presented in
the parsing line leans a little more towards etymology than might be useful for
native speakers – that is to say, words are broken down as far as possible into
their analyzable constituent morphemes, rather than being broken down only
insofar as they are semantically compositional. Thus, for example, dukʷil ‘be
supernatural’ is analyzed as dukʷ(u) ‘abnormal’ + -il ‘inchoative’, dukʷud ‘put a
spell on someone’ as dukʷ(u) ‘abnormal’ + -t ‘internal causative’, and dukʷtxʷ
‘get angry at someone’ as dukʷ(u) ‘abnormal’ + -txʷ ‘external causative’. There
are two reasons for this choice. The first is that, from a linguist’s perspective, this
makes it easy to identify the various meanings and uses that the root and the accompanying affixes have in these texts. The second is that, although the normal
place for this kind of etymological analysis is in lexicographical materials, the
existing dictionaries of Lushootseed (Hess 1976; Bates et al. 1994) are intended
for pedagogical purposes and do not always contain explicit analyses of words.
In some cases, where overanalysis is judged simply to be too confusing or to
reflect completely non-productive derivational processes, morphologically complex words are left unanalyzed. This is particularly true for common nouns which
Note that this class of radical is not consistently recognized in the Lushootseed Dictionary (Bates
et al. 1994) and several radicals in this class, like šq, are cited in their CəC forms. It should also be
noted that the CəC form of some of these radicals appears when combined with a few (but not all)
lexical suffixes where the prosodic rule would predict the CC form.
2
Sample Material © 2015 UBC Press
Introduction
17
are analyzable but non-compositional, such as q’il’bid ‘canoe’, which is etymologically composed of q’il(i) ‘be aboard vehicle’ and -bid ‘implement’. Likewise,
words that are not completely analyzable are presented as undivided wholes, even
where some of the constituent parts do appear to be identifiable. Thus, we have
words such as x̌aƛ’alap ‘steer with paddle’, which appears to contain the lexical
suffix •alap ‘hip’ but whose root is not known. This is especially common practice for words containing what appear to be fossilized middle -b suffixes, such as
saxʷəb ‘jump’ and qʷšaab ‘be foggy’, and for the many nouns beginning with
what appears to be (or to have been) the lexical nominalizing prefix s- but whose
roots are no longer attested as independent verbal elements.
Following the morphological segmentation, an aligned morphological analysis of each component identified in the previous line is given using a standardized set of abbreviations and glosses for radicals and other lexical items. The
abbreviations used are those being developed in the Lushootseed reference
grammar currently underway (Beck, in progress), for which this set of interlinearized texts was initially produced. These abbreviations are given in a table
at the beginning of the book, and the terminology behind them is defined informally in the glossary at the end of this volume in terms that, it is hoped, will
be helpful to the non-specialist. Lexical glosses are as far as possible drawn from
a standardized set such that every instance of a particular radical or unanalyzed
lexical item is the same for every attestation of that word. The motivations for
this are the same as for erring on the side of etymological analysis. In cases
where the use of a standardized gloss is felt to be too distorting (e.g., if it makes
it too difficult to identify the source in the analysis line of a particular meaning
in the full gloss), more context-appropriate glosses are used.
The final line presents a full gloss or approximate English translation. Unlike
previous presentations of Lushootseed texts in the Lushootseed Readers (Hess
1995, 1998, 2006) or in Bierwert 1996, the English glosses here do not lean
towards presenting the content of the utterance in the most idiomatic, registerequivalent manner: instead, the glosses used lean the other way, towards
reflecting the actual syntactic structure of the Lushootseed, insofar as this is possible in an intelligible English sentence. This means that some of the glosses offered may occasionally sound stilted (as opposed to the glosses in the Readers,
which maintain a colloquial style more reflective of the flavour of the original
narrative). It is hoped that having more isomorphic English glosses will make the
grammatical structure of the line more obvious to English-speaking (or Englishdominant) readers.3 An example of this is the treatment of the passive voice, whose
See Bierwert 1996, 24–39, for a discussion of a more literary approach to the same material.
3
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Introduction
discourse functions in Lushootseed are markedly different from those in English
(Beck 2000). As a result, passive clauses in the Lushootseed Readers are generally glossed in the active voice in the interests of more natural-sounding English,
whereas here passives are glossed in the English passive voice, except where the
corresponding English verb does not have a comprehensible passive form.
While no attempt was made to match the grammatical aspect of the
Lushootseed sentences in the English translations, the translations do match in
tense (departing from the practice in the Readers of narrating the stories consistently in the past tense, following standard English storytelling conventions).
Since the Lushootseed stories are narrated in the present tense, I have (wherever
possible) adopted the convention of glossing the habitual ƛ’u= as ‘always’ or
‘usually’, rather than as the past tense habitual ‘would’ used in the Readers.
Finally, I have opted for using a fairly rigid translation of the sentential conjunctions hay ‘so’, huy ‘then’, and gʷəl ‘and’ that introduce so many of the lines in
these narratives. Although this has resulted in some odd-sounding English
glosses, the dissonance created by the practice is, as noted by Bierwert (1996,
27), an open invitation to further investigation of the role that these elements
play in narrative structure.
Unlike the translations in the Readers and in Bierwert 1996, the translations
here do not make any attempt to maintain the deictic distinctions encoded in the
complex Lushootseed system of demonstratives and determiners. One reason
for this is that the Lushootseed system reflects so many non-English categories
that any attempt to paraphrase would create unwieldy noun phrases (e.g., ‘the
specific non-female one near to the speaker’) that receive far more “weight” in
the English translation than they have in the Lushootseed original. Another reason is that deictic distinctions (particularly between tiʔəʔ ‘proximate’ and tiʔiɬ
‘distal’) are used for reference-tracking and topic-continuity in ways that they
are not in English, and directly translating the Lushootseed determiners in the
English translation introduces spurious spatial distinctions (referring to someone
as “that person” because they are non-topical when they are actually spatially
close to the action and to topical characters referred to as “this person”) or contrasts in definiteness that are not reflective of the original (definiteness not being
a category of Lushootseed grammar). Another departure from the practice in the
Readers is that glosses no longer contain contextual information about the utterance (added by Hess to help students follow the storyline). Only information that
is contained in the utterance itself is included in glosses. Additional material in
translations included in parentheses represents either understood but elided
arguments of sentence predicates, or – where absolutely necessary – the names
Sample Material © 2015 UBC Press
Introduction
19
of third persons expressed by zeros or ambiguous pronominal elements. The motivations for taking this approach are the same as those for opting for isomorphic
structural glosses.
As with the transcriptions, the translations used in this volume do not always correspond exactly to the translations found in previous published versions
of the texts. In a very few cases, these differences result from the reinterpretation, based on grammatical reanalysis, of sentences or phrases. Because these
texts were originally transcribed with the help of an Elder native-speaker, this
practice was avoided whenever possible; however, there are places where it
seems clear that the Elder’s translation was either intended to be more explanatory than literal, or that the difficulty of translating the Lushootseed sentence
into a fluent-sounding English sentence led to some reformulation of content.
Because the texts in this volume include back-and-forth and conversational
exchanges between the storyteller and others present during the telling, there are
cases where translations are prefixed with the name or initials of the person
speaking – either an interlocutor making an intervention or the storyteller responding to such an interjection or resuming the narrative. The first time an individual makes an interjection, that individual’s full name is used (e.g., “Vi Hilbert”);
subsequent interjections are marked by that person’s initials (e.g., “VH”).
Acknowledgments
It goes without saying that a volume of this type could not have been put together
without the efforts of many other people. First and foremost are those who were
involved in the creation and recording of the texts themselves – Susie Sampson
Peter, Dora Solomon, Mary Sampson Willup, Harry Moses, Alice Williams,
Louise Anderson, Dewey Mitchell, and Martin Sampson. Vi Hilbert, Leon Metcalf, and Pamela Amoss also deserve credit for making the recordings from which
the stories in this volume are drawn. I’d also like to acknowledge the support of
Lushootseed Research. Jay Miller has been exceptionally helpful in providing a
preface and the biographical materials on the storytellers and helping to locate
photographs and sketches of the storytellers; he also deserves profuse thanks for
his good advice on many other matters. Jill La Pointe provided family photos of
her grandmother and great-grandmother and other relatives and friends. Thanks
also to Theresa Trebon of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community for biographies of Mary Willup, Martin Sampson, and Dewey Mitchell, and for the photographs of Mrs. Willup, Mr. Mitchell, and the young Martin Sampson. Barbara
Brotherton was also kind enough to assist us in finding the picture of Alice
Williams. I am grateful to Bruce Miller for discussing this project with the
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Introduction
Upper Skagit, Swinomish, and Sauk-Suiattle communities. Darcy Cullen and
UBC Press also deserve credit for their adaptability as we moved along the road
to final publication.
Credit and appreciation for the recording and transcription of most of the
stories in this volume are due to Vi Taqʷšəblu Hilbert, without whose valiant
efforts as a collector of texts, a native-speaker transcriber, and a translator these
invaluable stories might have remained forever inaccessible. My late co-author,
Thom Hess, deserves much credit for the refinement of the written material and
its presentation in this volume, for providing valuable assistance and feedback
on the analyses up to his death in 2009. My own interest and what modicum of
understanding I have of how the language works flows directly from Thom, and,
although his failing health prevented him from participating as energetically as
he’d have liked in the final stages of this collaborative project, I’d like to think
that he’d be pleased with the final results.
David Beck
Sample Material © 2015 UBC Press